The future of urban secur ity

For NYPD’S Counterterrorism Chief JIM WATERS,

the most effective police force is the most informed.

In 1990, there were 2 262 murders, of 527 000 indexed crimes – rape, robbery, assault, larceny. Last year, it’s less than 300 murders and, for the first time, fewer than 100 000 indexed crimes.

Part of the reason why: We have 15 000 cameras that go to the Watch Command Center. The newer cameras are crystal clear. But no one can look at 15 000 cameras. So we have video analytics that can alert us if a car is going the wrong way on a one-way street, if someone is in an area where no one really should be. And cameras are linked to Shotspotters, acoustic sensors that register the sound of a gunshot, so we can look at the footage from that location and time. If we’re doing an investigation, our license-plate readers can tell us where the car has been and the owner’s travel patterns. When answering 911 calls, other records go to our phones. How many complaint reports have been made at this residence? Has the owner been arrested or have a warrant? Before you leave the car, you know if this might be a violent situation.

Privacy concerns? We hold video for 30 days. On day 31, if there’s no reason to keep it for evidence, it’s gone. You cannot retrieve it. Licence-plate data, we hold for five years. And we put the cameras up with a big NYPD logo. It’s not looking in your living-room window.